Twenty five thousand ageing Gurkhas have lost a legal battle for equal pension
rights after a judge ruled that they are not entitled to the same rate as
other former British soldiers.

Campaigners insisted that they would fight on despite a High Court ruling upholding a Government decision which prevents those who retired before 1997 enjoying full British military pensions.

Mr Justice Burnett, sitting in London, ruled that the Ministry of Defence’s decision to apply a cut-off point did not represent discrimination.

The ruling leaves thousands of increasingly frail veterans – most of them living in their native Nepal – with only about a third of the pension received by the British comrades they once fought alongside.

Many of those who served in the Second World War receive no official support at all because of the current arrangements in Nepal which require Gurkhas to have served 15 years before qualifying, according to campaigners.

It represents a striking setback for the former serviceman who won the right to settle in Britain last year’s high profile campaign led by actress Joann Lumley. Miss Lumley was not directly involved in the latest court challenge.

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But welfare groups said that the blow would not be the end of the campaign for equal pension rights with their British counterparts and called for a renewed campaign to change the rules.

"The Gurkhas have always been an integral part of the British Armed Forces, fighting the same wars and carrying out the same duties as British soldiers,” said Ann Widdecombe, the Tory MP who has long supported the Gurkhas’ cause.

“It is an injustice to give these veterans a pension based on their country of origin instead of the country in whose Army they loyally served." The case challenged the basis of a decision in 2007 to allowing Gurkhas who retired after 1997 to transfer into the UK Armed Forces pension schemes but excluded an estimated 25,000 who did so before that date. The timing was linked to the regiment moved from its former base in Hong Kong to Britain.

Mr Justice Burnett, sitting in London, spoke of the "high regard" in which Gurkhas are held in Britain but ruled that the MoD decision did not breach the Human Rights Act.

He also said that it was not unreasonable for the MoD to have considered the additional cost of boosting the pensions of those who retired earlier, with many returning to their native Nepal, where average incomers are much lower.

Chhatra Rai, general secretary of the British Gurkha Welfare Society's, said: “It is … disappointing that we did not win the case, though we have understood that this was not likely to be the end of the road.

"The approach of the MoD makes no sense since it is clear that considerable cost savings could be made if Gurkhas would feel less pressure to settle in the UK as this would also put less pressure on the British welfare system.

“Improving our pension is a no brainer as the maths is easy to do.”

Peter Carroll, who helped lead Miss Lumley’s successful campaign for Gurkhas to be allowed to settle in Britain, said: “It is a great shame because there are terrible injustices in the pension system.

“I don’t think it signals the end but to win the Gurkhas have to come together and harness public opinion like they did in the citizenship campaign.”